


A Matress For Five

by Jean_does_not_have_a_horseface



Series: Dad Levi and his Ackerbabies [4]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Ackerbabies, Angst, Behold dad!Levi, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Levi being a wholesome dad, Other, ackerbabies being ackerbabies, as always in my fics, no ackerbaby is in danger don't worry, this is going to break your heart read at your own risk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jean_does_not_have_a_horseface/pseuds/Jean_does_not_have_a_horseface
Summary: In the midst of being overwhelmed by his newborn's illness, Levi and the rest of your children have to deal with your sudden loss.
Relationships: Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin)/Reader
Series: Dad Levi and his Ackerbabies [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/759264
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	A Matress For Five

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this prompt was requested on Tumblr. It was supposed to be a cute fan drabble filled with ackerbabies, but it turned out to be very angsty, so I'm sorry
> 
> Here's the prompt/ request: _our newborn child has been really ill for a couple weeks and you’ve been really worried. luckily, we took them to the doctors and everything’s fine. yet despite it being nearly a week since we went to the doctors, you’ve slept beside the crib every night.- with kuchel shes the youngest and imagine levi and the rest of the ackerbabies sleeping with her cause they're worried_

For the first time in a long while, Levi’s eyes stung feverously with exhaustion and insomnia. It was a silent beg, the first sign of his body giving in to the fatigue of taking care of four children but for all he knew, given the situation things would have to be worse before they got better.

His feet couldn’t hold himself up in that late hour; not that even dared to move to check on the clock on the nightstand, his perception of time was more of an assumption. He had spend endless nights wide awake, clinging onto Kuchel’s crib for dear life, interwinning her little hand with his, as his sorrows would bathe him in cold sweat.

The small hand that faintly clung onto his intex finger and wouldn’t let loose of the steady grip sent earth shattering rashes of pain inside his heart as his eyes batted to its owner. His very own, crucially small and excessively faint daughter, that desperately needed him to simply survive. His eyes batted as he took in her small form for the upteenth time this evening. He loathed to be in that place again, to watch another beloved Kuchel in his life suffer with illness.

He had brought it to himself, he figured. By agreeing that she looked like him enough to be honored to share a name with his mother. Yet, after the recent events of having watched her suffer with whatever was that had gotten her down, he kept on wondering if luck was playing games with him for chosing his ill-fated mother’s name. Was it really that much of a coincidence that he had to be stripped off another Kuchel, in a much similar situation?

And how on earth was he supposed to deal with another death brought onto his own little family.

The image of you leaving your last breath while you begged for him to protect your children was a fresh addition of the annihilating pain of grief that clung into his chest as if it was it’s safe place. His eyes couldn’t help batting erratically to prevent new waves of tears from running cold on his temples as he mentally clung onto the fondest memories of yours. He knew, with the way things were now, he shouldn’t allow himself to be weak. There were four children that were completely depended on him, in despairate need to be helped, fed and be stood by for.

He had figured that by allowing himself to be egoistic with his grief he would only manage to repeat Kenny’s behavior towards him. Naturally, no decent parent figure would ever chose to treat their children in such way and he didn’t wish upon his own babies to feel most of the overwhelming emotions of abandonment he had felt before.

Had you still been here though, no one would have to be forced to deal with your loss in the first place. And as for Kuchel, she wouldn’t have to fall sick and fight for her survival since day one.

He still could recall days where you would have fun with your sons, still very pregnant, resting assured that you’d always protect everyone in your own way.

In his memories, you held him tight, arm lingering on his as he cooked a healthy meal for your sons, rubbing one hand over your belly and begging him not to get you pregnant for a long time. Your boys, curious as ever would ask a trillion questions concerning your baby bum to which Kurt would jump to answer before you, taking the role of the experienced older brother, making you giggle at his quick wits and smart mouth.

You would simply bat your eyes in awe and pride as you’d look at him go and take responsibility for his brother at such a young age and in turn, Kurt would promise you he’d always take care of Kuchel as well. Then you would look at Levi, orbs glistering with with plastered happiness only to mouth a silent i love you to him.

The sudden forced halt to your everyday affections was probably what hurt him the most.

In his head, he imagined, you laid beside him as he placed Kuchel to sleep on his chest, smiling at the tenderly profound affection. You hand would graze the surface of his stomach, sliding across the baby’s tiny body, only for your fingers to rest on his chin, so tenderly and faintly that he could barely feel them. Your expression would be serene, hues glimmering golden as they’d mirror the warm tingerine flicker of the candlelight.

He would spare you a smile, the most effortessly sincere one he could put on and he’d watch as your eyes would widen. When you’d realise the nature of his expression you would crash your lips against his, noses bumping feverishly into eachother as you’d try to freeze the smile on his face, afraid that it would disappear never to be seen again.

And to that, you would have probably been right. He wasn’t going to smile again, not without you at least. Your departure from his life had ripped his heart like an old rotten rag and there was no way for him to manage to pick the pieces of his heart and stitch them back together. He had done it one too many times, just to push forward with being a soldier.

With a heart that was broken one too many times, he should have felt numb when he was ripped off another beloved person.

But he couldn’t say the same would ever apply to his children.

As he laid there, staring at Kuchel’s chest falling and rising with each little breath she took, he felt like the world threatened to rip him way from his younglings as well. His heart ached at the thought that they would ever have to share a fate with him.

The looks on their confused faces on the day of Kuchel’s birth still crushed him. Little by little, day by day, he’d watch as everyone would fall into melancholy from your sudden departure. Kuchel was the first one to suffer from your loss, perhaps, even more fundamentally in comparison to the others.

It had been weeks since Kuchel had fallen ill.

Levi had strained himself physically and mentally trying to figure out what was going on, how could he help or how could he ever even feed her. All the previous experience he had with his sons was nothing compared to not being able to feed his daughter property; what he had suspected of being a mild case of colics, as often as it was on infants, had turned out to be a painful experience for every member in the house just as much as it had been for the newborn girl.

The doctor he had consulted with a little more than a week ago had assured him what Kuchel was going through was normal for children that were forced to receive substitute for their mother’s milk. Perhaps, he had suggested, if Levi could find a wet nurse for her she wouldn’t have to go through such horrific colics and suffer.

He was only shaken from his thoughts at the creaking sound of the heavy door to your once shared bedroom opening slightly. His eyes immediately fell on the source of sound, only to be welcomed by a small flashing of the dark corridor. With all willpower to move strained from his body though, he couldn’t yet manage to utter a single word.

“Kurt, will Kuchel die?”

“Can we go see her?”

The tiny, barely audible voices grazed Levi’s eardrums softly, always tenderly allowing him to process the spoken words that left his children’s mouths. His nose twitched as anxiety rushed through him, causing him to slightly raise a hand to scratch it in an attempt to shake it’s newfound numbness away. The thought of having to force himself to get up from Kuchel’s bedside even for a mere moment drowned him in worry and despair.

“No, stupid, she won’t die dad’s taking care of her. And no, see they’re asleep.” Kurt whispered as a response, looking at his two brothers after his hand shot on the door to prevent them from opening it further.

Despite the door creaking ever more in response to them pressing their weight on it, the three boys ignored the sound as if it fell deaf to their ears. John and Tony batted their eyes in Kurt’s hand, struggling to fit their heads in the slight opening to peek inside the room.

“Mommy wee come and hep her.” John tried to whisper, mustering out his best composed words. Kurt threw the younger boy a dangerous glare as the words fell of his mouth, ready to scold him for speaking his nonsense so loud.

“Mom’s not coming back,” Tony managed to speak, confused as ever, before Kurt ever had a chance to open his mouth. “I think.”

Kurt sighed, a loud, angered scoff of air escaping his small nostrils. “Mom’s dead, we’re never seeing her again. Get it brats?” His grip on the door tightened as he spoke, his feet that had been pushing forward to stop himself from bursting, finally giving in to the pain on the fresh wound in his little chest.

“Kuwt is mean!"John mumbled with a tied tongue "Towy, awe we going to see Kuchel again?”

“In the morning, John!”

“I wan to sweep next to dad!”

“Shut your shitty mouths! Dad is sleeping and we’ll wake him and Kuchel up!”

On the other side of the door, Levi laid on the bed in a haze, listening carefully to his children lashing out on their inner thoughts to each other. Originally, he would simply ignore the late night stomping of curiosity his sons were engaged in but an itch to his chest prompted him to get up, to open the door and welcome them into the room.

Hange had spoken to him about the significance of bonding time between him and his children now that they had to come to terms with the significant deat of a parental figure; each one of them them was in a crucial stage of their development, meaning they wouldn’t take their mother’s death in easily, or even similarly. The psychosynthesis of each child was fragile in its own way and right now Hange’s theories were turning out to be correct.

Before he knew it he had walked the distance to the door, opening it slowly to let the three children in.“Oi, what have I told you about being vulgar?”

The three siblings froze, chubby cheeks puffing at the sides of their puckered lips as they averted their eyes away from their father’s gaze in shame. Kurt took a step forward making sure to force his gray eyes to stare into his father’s identical ones, only to speak up the words that were threatening to spill from the tip of his tongue as his heartbeat went through the roof.

“I’m sorry dad!”

Levi’s hand automatically shot to the boys direction only to come and ruffle tenderly through his dark chocolate locks. His expression softened and his heart sped up at the slight change of demeanor coming from the boy; Kurt immediately wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling him closer to his smaller body. He melted under the touch. It seemed like his sorrows couldn’t bear to get worse at the presence of his children.

In less that a second, Tony and John had nuzzled their way to his legs, in turn, hugging him absurdly tight close to them. Hums and soft giggles escaped them as they cheered for the acceptance of their affections. Almost as if they commanded him to, Levi squatted down, allowing them to wrap their arms around his neck and torso. His own hands came to engulf them in the warmth of his chest, pressing their little heads against it.

“John said he wants to sleep with you! I will watch over Kuchel!” Kurt spoke with the most stern tone he could muster, only to deem himself serious enough for his father to take him seriously.

“Hey I don’t want to sleep alone!” Tony exhaled.

Levi couldn’t help but let out a huff of amusement through his nose. “How about you all hop onto the bed with me?” He questioned, orbs darting around to all three the pairs of eyes that stared back at him “That way no one has to sleep alone!”

Normally, he knew they would cheer in excitement when you’d allow them to sleep in between you, but the heartbreaking contrast to their current reaction served as another reminder that things were never going to be the same.

Their heads were darting down, eyes burning holes at the floor beneath them as they reluctantly agreed to follow him into the room. He could tell John simply mimicked his brothers’ reactions by a mere glance at him. The mellow indicator of his anxiety was served in the form of his teeny fingers mingling with the trims of his sleeves. A silent yawn escaped him, causing his chest to swell and fall in tiredness as he refused to rub any sleep away from his eyes. Noticing it, Levi knew he couldn’t waste any more time, he quickly ordered them to secure their grips onto him before he picked them up, entering the bedroom once again.

With curiosity written in their faces, once they were securely set onto the matress, the boys silently crawled to the direction of Kuchel’s crib, probing themselves at the edge of the wooden railing. Soon enough, Levi joined them; his hands gripped the railing as he rested his head against them, purposely mimicking his sons.

“Dad, will Kuchel die?” Kurt questioned with dark eyes probing in the direction of the newborn baby. The gulp that went down his throat didn’t escape Levi’s gaze.

“No, she just has stomach aches from the milk she’s been drinking.”

With skeptically forrowed brows Tony puckered his lips to the side of his cheek as he proceeded his father’s words. “So she will stop drinking milk?”

“Not quite,” Levi clicked his tongue “We’ll find someone to feed her.”

“Mommy wee feed her!”

A heavy sigh escaped Levi’s lips as John spoke with enthusiasm. His inability to comprehend death was only natural, Levi reminded himself, but that didn’t make it any easier for him to cope up with. It would months even years before Levi could explain to him the concept of death in a way that he could understand and come to terms with. For now, he had to settle with his his heartstrings pulling at him as he spoke the familiar indicators to remind John you were no more of “Mommy can’t come back to feed her, so we are going to find a wet nurse.”

“What’s that?” Tony inquired.

“She is someone who will provide milk for Kuchel like I’m providing food for you.”

“Oh!” Tony brought a finger at the side of lip as the profound realisation hit him “Like a new mommy? But why does Kuchel get to have a new mommy, doesn’t she like our mommy?”

Levi wasn’t given a chance to speak his mind, to educate them on the subject of death once again. Their voices were overlapping each others in a panicked state. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for them to do in stressful situations; crying in sync as they stuck with each other as a lunatic team when they cried was something he had grown used to in the past few years. He knew how to handle them, but frankly, in this very moment he mentally couldn’t.

“D-did Kuchel kill mommy?”

“Can babies kill?”

“Will Kuchel kill us as well? Daddy don’t let Kuchel kill you!”

“Kuchel loved mommy” Levi cleared his throat, finally putting an halt to the synchronized silly assumptions that were being spoken “It’s not her fault she had complications in birth.”

“Then I don’t want to give birth either!” A small cry escaped the group of siblings, causing Levi to bring a palm to his forehead. Sometimes, he wished he could explain things to them as you could, because how the hell was he supposed to explain to Tony that he couldn’t physically give birth to someone, at this late hour in the night with his head throbbing in worry for the sickling in the crib.

“You really don’t have to worry about that!” He spoke, voice flickering in the air as anxiety rushed through him for the upteenth time. “We should sleep, alright?”

The boys reluctantly bobbed their heads up and down in silently nods of agreement to their father’s words. Almost in synch, they detached their hands from the crib’s railing only to turn around on their knees to sprawl themselves into the vastness of the double sized bed they had always adorned.

Carefully, Levi laid on his side with his head facing Kuchel’s crib, just like a few minutes ago. His hand darted inside the crib, his finger wiggling its way to Kuchel’s little palm for her to grab onto. As welcoming as ever, the little palm wrapped around his index finger before a flickered breath exited his daughter’s small body. Once he had secured that she wasn’t going to be awaken by his actions, with his other hand, Levi plopped himself on his back and motioned to the boys to lay around him in the bed.

First John came to rest under his armpit, shifting himself to his liking onto his father’s chest, that much until his ebony hair tickled Levi’s chin. Levi recognised it as his perfect comfort sleeping position, the one he’d always go for when he’d sleep in your shared bed.

From that point on it only took seconds for the boy to fall asleep to his father’s chest falling up and down as he breathed in a steady manner. Tony had managed to nuzzle his way next to John, fast asleep as well as he cuddled up to both his brother and his father.

“You should sleep bratty.” Levi shot to Kurt’s direction’s as he watched him plop himself on his stomach, his head coming to rest above his hands on Levi’s hipbone. Although Levi was unsure if Kurt’s face seemed to lit up for a fragment of a second at the beloved petname that escaped his lips, he rested positive that he could at least convince the sever year old to give in to sleep.

“No thanks dad” He yawned “I’ll watch over Kuchel! You sleep”

“Kuchel is asleep as well, why don’t you come lay on my right side and close your eyes.”

Kurt seemed puzzled as he examined the choices he was given. The primary instinct to step in father’s shoes in order to protect his sister seemed to slowly give in to his need for some well deserved sleep. It would soon take over him completely, he figured as he stared back at his father, so he opted to comply to his father’s prompt for sleep.

Besides, having the chance to sleep tight like a baby on his father’s chest like his brothers was as important to his childish antics.

Thus, with a shift in his movements he found himself carefully positioned on the right side of his father’s body, nose nuzzling just on the underside of Levi’s muscled ribs. The question he wanted to shoot at his father remained at the tip of his tongue as sleep mellowy engulfed him.

Levi’s stinging eyes felt heavy as his boys cooed peacefully in his embrace. Maybe, just for tonight, he could let himself rest in the presence of his spawns because unbeknownst to them, they had managed to temporarily put his mind and grief at ease.

Maybe just for tonight, he could let you visit him in his sleep and make things perfect again even for as long as a dream lasted. And maybe when he’d wake up Kuchel would be perfectly fine again and his sons wouldn’t be drowning in melancholy and confusion and maybe he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his days wishing your bed could hold six sleeping bodies instead of five.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for clicking and reading this story to its entirety! If you enjoyed it, kudos and comments are always appreciated, please look forward to more of my future works!


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